


A Soft Place To Land

by MinaMauveine



Series: May We Meet Again [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Epilogue, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-07-10 10:16:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6979660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinaMauveine/pseuds/MinaMauveine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke stays in this waking world and fulfills her role to play until she has nothing left to give. The golden optimism and tenacity flakes off her and gifts her people until even her sapphire blues are gone. </p><p>Though in this rendition, her little bird doesn’t freeze in the winter cold that settles. </p><p>Instead, Raven rewards flight to a weary soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Soft Place To Land

**Author's Note:**

> The summary is done in reference to The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde.

They eventually reach a sustainable peace with the Earth’s ecosystem and the other occupants. The world they’ve poison gradually heals along with the people that attempt to repopulate it. There are regulations set in place so that they’ll never forget, never take for granted the fragile balance of life.

 

Though the hardships were many and the years bitter they manage to pull through and in no small part because of the delinquents they’ve once deemed expendable. There’s a new world built in the ashes of the old but their leader doesn’t rise as a phoenix nevertheless she does create a legacy befit a creature of myth for her people.

 

Clarke had continued to serve against every obstacle, given everything she had to sustain their survival until there was nothing left in her to lose. She had them overcome every pain they’ve had to face and her mantra never changes.

 

That this was their reality and no matter what they’ll come through this together.

 

This reality is bleak to those that sacrifice to keep their people well. Clarke is worn before her time, her body sinewy with weary muscle and eyes paled with losing sight, a price of overexposure. She’s respected, almost revere by the community though she’ll accept no formal distance from her first friends. From those that had been with her thick and thin since their 100 had first fallen from space.

 

Clarke greets Octavia with a shake of hands but soon pulls the younger woman into a tight hug. There’s no one else that quite understands the solitude that they keep and the heartbreak that had left them forever scarred. They hold onto each other as a lifeline.

 

Clarke doesn’t deny that time should heal all wounds; she’ll be a hypocrite if she went against her own slogan for Earth’s renewal and protection but she knows with absolute certainty that her lifetime is too short for her to fully mend without her other half.

 

Octavia is much the same way; in an unspoken manner they’ve found kindred spirits in one another. They don’t need to hash out details over lost loves when it defines a very core quality in them. They just are this way but it’s nice to be understood.

 

Octavia’s visits have always been sporadic after her revenge on Pike. She should be a wanted woman but so should all of them, Clarke had refused to let their nation start with more bloodshed and the chaos of the first 6 months had made Octavia’s crime an afterthought. Since then though they’ve been dedicated supporters to each other causes and a friend through the roughest storms.

 

“Oh my god, look at you two dorks.” Raven limps over to Octavia and laughs when she gets spun around. “It’s good to see you too, O.”

 

They weren’t always such good friends but after barely making it to days end the group of them had gotten exceedingly drunk and Raven had gone up to Clarke and Octavia blitz out of her mind and promptly told them that they didn’t have to always act so stoic, that they might have had Grounders _in_ them but they weren’t Grounders themselves.

 

It was a tense moment but after tossing up her cookies onto both Octavia and Clarke, Raven was the first to get them to actually laugh. They had been borderline hysterical till they were crying, it had been a cathartic experience.

 

“Careful, I’m not getting any younger.”

 

Octavia releases Raven after one more squeeze and they all head into Clarke’s holding. Bellamy watches his sister from afar and while she’ll acknowledge his presence, she’ll never speak to him. He’s had a hand in Lincoln’s and a hundred other deaths and Octavia can’t ever forget.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

They share a small meal and afterwards they watch apprehensively as Clarke struggles to inject herself with her daily medication. The cancer won’t be kept at bay any longer. There’s only so much a person can fight body and mind until one’s own cells turns on them.

 

Clarke appears especially exhausted when in the company of her friends; when she doesn’t have to present herself as infallible not only for her own Arkers but for the Grounders that she has united.

 

“So why don’t we stop pretending and you two tell me what you’re up to.”

 

Octavia lets Raven take point.

 

“I know you’ve scheduled a date for terminal sedation.”

 

“Don’t try to talk me out of it, I promise you that this isn’t just me giving up but-”

 

“It’s not like that Clarke, we know how much you’ve suffered for us and even with the cocktail of drugs you’re pumping into yourself you can barely make it to the harbour and back without looking ill.” Raven gives her arm a squeeze before tapping on the necklace at the center of Clarke’s chest. “I’m just giving you an alternative.”

 

Clarke takes Lexa’s chip into her quivering hands, another price she’s paid. This coming summer will be the first conclave, the new night bloods finally ready to take up mantle. Though there are no deaths in the tourney and the Grounder people have had enough technology inserted in them to let things be. It’ll only be a title and a test for rising leaders among their people; you don’t have to carry nightblood in you to enter. There’s no longer a price that comes with being blackened blood and the colouring has spread through the populace in the passing years. It was the blood’s natural protection against radiation that had saved them from the extreme conditions back in the start of their fighting’s end. There’s still a formal ceremony but soon Clarke won’t be the flame keeper any longer, the history of their two peoples handled by Arkers and Grounders trained anew as archivists.

 

“I can do it, I’ve actually been working on a rebuilding the City of Light server since you’ve came back to us.” Raven smiles, brushing at the tears that escape Clarke’s eyes. “I’m sorry it took so long but there was a lot of damage dealt to the original system and I had to pretty much build the whole thing from scratch, I didn’t want to give you false hope at first but I’ve finally stabilized the virtual world.”

 

“I didn’t even… I’ll die before I could be fully uploaded and merged into the program.”

 

Raven shakes her head. “Not if you had a source of nightblood going into your veins like before and we’ve asked Luna and she’s agreed, actually she informed the others and we have every nightblood candidate of this summer conclave coming to their Chancellor’s aid.”

 

“It can really happen?” Clarke looks desperately between Octavia and Raven. “How… I just thought it could never… _I_ would never deserve more out of this life than just surviving it…”

 

“Clarke…” Octavia is moved by her friend’s bleak outlook, taking the woman into her arms.

 

Raven has always dealt with the most serious moments in life with humour and does so now. “I’m not one to brag but its cause I’m a mother fucking genius.”

 

And just like that there’s laughter between the three of them once again.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

Clarke recalls warm summer showers and her friend’s by her bedside.

 

There’s no light, no transition time only a new reality.

 

She’s on heated shores with calling gulls. A crystal clear tide laps at her heels and when she stands she finds her movements unhindered by pain. It’s the first time in decades she’s been able breathe without her lungs feeling encumbered by moisture and rot. She dares to really straighten, pull taunt the muscles that have refused to obey after so many years of abuse.

 

There’s no agony here and it alarms her. For her entire lifetime, pain has been her only remainder, overcoming it her only goal. She falls onto her knees, feels her descent soften by the fine powder white of the beach and the jostling of her movements doesn’t shock her entire body with aching.

 

The sand feels real. The texture, the heat given off as she cups it into her palms and watches the grains shifts free between her fingers.

 

Laughter pulls her from her reverie. There are others on the beach, people splashing in the ocean and some relaxing in the close forest’s shade.

 

She approaches them cautiously and they let her near without disruption. A ball gets knocked near her feet and when she picks it up the one’s playing wave for her to throw it back. She tosses the ball and once again nothing hurts.

 

She wonders if this will be the most surreal part of her experience here in the new City of Light.

 

“Would you like to join us?”

 

Clarke turns swiftly, having been on guard for far too long to let even this place ease her reflexes. “Becca?!”

 

“When your friend rebuilt this world she gave a place for all those who had served as Commander.”

 

“There are a lot of people here.”

 

“It was a land in turmoil, to be Heda and take up command was almost always a death sentence.” Becca gives a bright lipped smile, offers her hand to Clarke but when Clarke only stares she takes it in stride and laces her fingers behind her back. “You’ve met most of us before, at the ArkDC as other bar patrons.”

 

“You were our driver,” Clarke closes her eyes, focuses on the memories she has used to fuel her, “our bartender and guard… I had always thought it was A.I.’s.”

 

“When the tech was still in your neck it drew power from you and it sustained our presence while you and Alexandria lived out yours.” Becca nods her head towards a path leading through the forest. “I’m sorry your time together was so short then, it doesn’t have to be now.”

 

“She’s not here?” Clarke is searching over the faces of everyone present and doesn’t stop until Becca places a hand on her shoulder.

 

“She likes to keep to herself; we’ve served in her position before and understand the want for solitude.”

 

It makes sense, these were her people but they don’t need a leader, none of them are held by chains of command, not here.

 

“I would like to see her.” Clarke’s voice trembles, she’s too old to feel this young and bashful but there’s been so much time. How will she look to Lexa, would they still connect, would her love still want her?

 

Becca holds a finger on the crease between Clarke’s brows but pulls away when Clarke rolls her sharp gaze onto her. “Your expression is too easy to read, before you trouble yourself further why don’t you go in?”  

 

They’ve made it up to a rocky hill where a small seaside villa sits overlooking the forestry and beach. She turns back to bid Becca goodbye but the woman was already gone.

 

Clarke’s never been so nervous in her life, at least not after she had come back to life. Her grip is clammy around the metal door knob and when she turns it there’s no lock. The door swings open into an airy living room, the walls painted the same shade as their apartment had looked in her dreams.

 

“Lexa?” Her voice is quiet, the steel reinforced into it after so many years as Chancellor need not be in their home.

 

There’s a clattering upstairs and then Lexa is descending down the steps two by two. They both freeze when they make eye contact. Lexa is in clothes they’ve had in their married life and the smile on her face shines. She leaps over the banister and crashes into Clarke. They hold unto each other like a life raft and finally something broken mends.

 

“Clarke,” Lexa leans away just enough to reverently touch Clarke’s face, to trace every line and scar as if contact alone could sustain her, “Raven has been communicating with Becca and while I don’t understand everything they exchange she did tell me there’s no singular entry point or I would’ve been there to greet you, I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

 

“I don’t care,” Clarke tugs Lexa into her arms again, clings until she feels like breaking, “you’re here now.”

 

“I am.” Lexa’s voice is unbearably soft.

 

“You always were.” Clarke reaches for her necklace and is surprised to find it still hanging over her heart. She’s unsure of the laws in this reality but just like her father’s watch she has summoned her necklace into being.

 

“Our entire relationship has been made up of instances of our separation, but that won’t be the case anymore Clarke, we are both here now.”

 

Clarke finds herself sobbing, decades of pent up grief spilling free as she finds herself finally home.

 

Lexa strokes a comforting hand through Clarke’s hair and supports their weight as the emotions Clarke has stifled overwhelms her.

 

Lexa holds her love close and will never cease to do so.

 

“Our fight is finally over”

 

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

 

A.R.C 6741 (After Renewal Clock)

 

In the megalopolis there stands a museum of past ages and the now. It showcases the world before, the constant strife, of the testing times between and of the genesis of their society. 

 

At the very center of the exhibit floats a perfect circular globe, its plexiglass container holds transparent picotech. In the renewing gel floats a chip with tendrils growing out from its core, its silver roots drips down into an infinity processor.

 

It symbolizes an era gone by, of a harsher world whence they came from and where they’ll never revert to.

 

In a more romanticized view, the chip will stand eternally as evidence to their world’s greatest mythos of unparalleled devotion and love.

**Author's Note:**

> [Buy Me a Coffee?](https://ko-fi.com/A1464VTG)


End file.
